Search this blog

Subscribe To

"Never under any condition should this nation look at an immigrant as primarily a labor unit. He should always be looked at primarily as a future citizen."-Theodore Roosevelt, 1917

"It is not possible to be in favor of justice for some people and not be in favor of justice for all people."-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Isaona i tumungo’ ya ha sedi, ki ayo i mismo umisagui hao. Greater is the fault of he who allows the injustice upon himself. "-Chamorro proverb

"There can be no tyrants where there are no slaves." -Jose Rizal

"I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights." -Bishop Desmond Tutu

Disclaimer: This is not a legal blog. No opinion or statement should be perceived as legal advice. All posts are the opinion of the author or contributors who are expressing their First Amendment Rights.

CNMI Attorney General Matt Gregory announced that the tax rebates under the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, may be limited to US citizens. According to the Marianas Variety article he is waiting for word from Finance Secretary Eloy Inos. Seems to me that if your status mandates that you have to pay taxes, then you should also receive a rebate. What about the parents of US Citizen children -they too may not get a rebate? In fact the article states that:

"On Guam, all taxpayers, including legal aliens, are entitled to receive rebates under the stimulus package act.The rebates on Guam are scheduled to be distributed this week."

It seems that if the legal aliens on Guam are eligible for rebates, certainly the legal aliens on the CNMI are eligible for rebates. I will definitely check this out!

1 comments:

Anonymous
said...

II know that there has been a lot of confusion about the Bush Stimulus money and whether or not the CNMI Contract Workers are entitled to the money. First off, there is a fundamental difference between the CNMI and Guam--Immigration Control and ergo with it the federal power to tax. Until the recent passage of the federalization bill in the CNMI, the CNMI was not part of the US for immigration and therefore the US Federal government never asserted any tax jurisdiction over the contract workers in the CNMI. I believe that there is a lot of confusion regarding a worker's W-2 statement. For example the Chapter 7 shown on your W-2 as "fed tax" and Chapter 2 shown on your return as "local tax" are two taxes that are actually paid to the CNMI. It is a misnomer to call it "fed tax" this money never goes to the federal government it was just the name termed by the CNMI when they converted over W-2 from the U.S. System. The CNMI government just left the names in place. The contract workers and especially the Filipino contract workers do not pay any federal taxes whatsoever. I hate to burst your bubble but the Filipinos for years have been claiming an exemption to FICA and Medicare tax based on the exemption given to workers in Guam. I notice that there has been a lot of misquotes about this situation. More than 60% of the contract workers in the CNMI are not paying any FICA and Medicare taxes. Any of the contract workers who did pay such taxes did so in error. So as for the entitlement to Bush Stimulus money there is no such entitlement for the contract workers. They simply never worked in the U.S. nor were they authorized to work in the U.S. as required by the Bush Stimulus law.